I've been learning Maya for the past month or so, and although it was confusing at first (and still is, a bit) it will get much easier and much more powerful as you learn more. The only problem is that Maya is like $6,000...I've been using a trial version, and I'm trying to think of ways to get out of that besides using campustech (a website that resells software for students; they buy in bulk and for education purposes, so Maya ends up being $400)

There's always a way to get free software when you need it. Anyways, I've only used Maya once, didn't like it though. I preferred 3DS Max better, but I had problems using it because this laptop doesn't have a powerful graphics card, therefore the application was startlingly lacking. Thanks to a few tuts on youtube, I was able to make 3D water in just a few minutes with it, yes, it was beautiful.

Flash CS4 is amazing especially with the new Inverse Kinetics(Bone) Tool. Though I think it can use a few bits of fixing its just an amazing add. The new Tweening systems can be great if you know how to use it and the 3d in my opinion is going to cut down manual drawing for now on and bring alot of better animations into play that are much more smooth and beautifully rendered.

I've been through both Maya and 3D's max, and i belive they both got pwned a long time ago by Blender 3D. While there may be some truth to learning Max may easier get you into a company, the reason for this is not the capabilities of the program. It's the current industry-standart, but you need to look at the history to understand that. When the game-companies launched Max was the cheapest program that were capable of most things. Today it isn't, especially it's animation-department is horrible. Blender does have a slightly more advanced UI, but as soon as one learns it it's extremely advantagous, dynamic, and easy. Also, the fact that blender is opensource allows for easier gathering of free resources and tutorials, and in general a much nicer comunity. the reason the industry doesn't change program without hesitation is as far as i know due to the major expenses of remaking all their plug-ins, and the lack of education in alternative programs.

Animations are a wonderful thing that I hope I can follow within my career in the future, I have tried programs that help create animations for example : GoogleSketchUp <--- It's actually fun to use , I know there's more programs that make animations but for a basic start off, I think googlesketchup is a wonderful program and hope people can use it , :]

i find that wax 2.0 is very good for 3d animation as long as all you want to do is move and rotate both 3ds models and the camera in 3d space. it also supports green screen effects, compositing,text and other effects.

Lightwave is catching up with their new rigging tools, but Maya has a seemingly smoother workflow. Both are incredibly deep programs and it would take a great deal of time to fully learn both extensively.